


Filling The Empty Set

by Orethon



Category: Call of Cthulhu (Roleplaying Game), Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Original Work, 機神咆吼デモンベイン | Kishin Houkou Demonbane
Genre: Halfway to halfway, Love is a paradox, Other, Paradoxes that are not paradoxes, That's the joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 05:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orethon/pseuds/Orethon





	Filling The Empty Set

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dawnstone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstone/gifts).



 

_Aparadoxia : A collection volume of 7 magazines, each individually paginated, case bound in lacquered ebony, inlaid with bismuth and pyrite in a mosaic pattern. Titled in gilt to spine. PP 222. Each magazine is an issue, numbered 0 to 6, of “Aparadoxia Meditations”. Author or authors unknown. Printer credited as “Diogenes' Noble House of Print”. Printed primarily on matte paper in grayscale, with each magazine having a centerpiece of glossy color print mandala of exceeding intricacy. Some marginalia in vulgar latin, possibly by a scholar with high ideas of themselves. Mandalas appear to move over time, and present difficulty when photographed. The gloss of the page unfailingly renders the mandala illegible._

 

Cierra was having a bad day. Not a horrible day, like some she could recall, but certainly a less than ideal one. Her workload, thus far, had been dreadfully uninteresting – primarily doublechecking and admin. Had she known that heading the Department of Periodicals and Permutatives would imply this level of disconnect from the actual _work_ of cataloging, sorting, and _reading_ the texts she curated, she may have declined the promotion. May have. The pay was excellent, and she was often left to herself in the humdrum of administration. She liked being left to herself, for the most part. It was easier to accept her status when there was no-one else around to interfere with it.

_That which is least observed is least changed?_

The thought found itself in her mind before she knew she was thinking it. Not an uncommon occurrence, but an uncommon thought, and that aside, an occurrence worth noting. Laguna Bay's collections had tendencies towards encouraging... eccentricities. She had been surprised, when she began, that they even had a Periodicals section. More surprised to learn what 'Permutatives' implied. Texts – and the odd artifact – capable of self-revision, or naturally changing. Evolution set in ink and fiber (primarily). She had chosen it because it appealed to her low attention span, her tendency to jump from idea to idea, from article to article. It had been a rewarding choice.

“Miss Blake?” the timorous voice of another nameless intern – she no longer felt it worth committing the mental focus to differentiate them – penetrated her sanctum, dulled by the heavy door. A knock followed, as she waited for the question, and she realized she would have to respond before this interaction could be completed.

“Yes...? What _is_ it?” She was impatient, not because she had anything she wanted to get back to, but because she wanted to get away.

“Eh... Efraim has sent a, well, a volume. He says it is For Your Eyes Only,” the voice of the intern accurately portrayed Efraim's habit of speaking in Capital Letters when emphasizing things. This lightened Cierra's mood a bit, as a private laugh at a peer was a pleasant change of pace.

“Then do bring it in, please. I have quite a bit to work on, here, you know.”

“Yes, yes,” the assistant enters, surprised at the unimposing figure of his never before seen boss. For all her deadpan annoyance and dismissive opinion of her fellow humans, she was not a scary woman. Her chestnut hair was kept in a tight, inexpert ponytail, more effective at keeping it out of her eyes than anything else, and strands were constantly breaking loose and waving about above her head, giving her a bedraggled look. Her eyes, rather than being a piercing green like Jaime's, were a dull hazel, hidden behind perpetually smudged rimless glasses. Her uniform was wrinkled and uncentered, and her tie hung loose and inexpertly tied. All this aside, she still acted with as much standoffish disdain as she could muster in the company of any but her closest – purely hypothetical – friends, and her many scattered diaries.

“Efraim said you might like this assignment...” he sets the padded lockbox down, and hands Cierra a sealed envelope, stamped with the seal of Esoteric Acquisitions, “the key.”

There is a silent moment while Cierra ponders the box and key, wondering what might be inside, and the assistant shifts nervously from foot to foot, wondering what to do, before Cierra catches on.

“You may go.”

 

* * *

 

Aparadoxia was _engrossing_. Cierra read through it again and again, taking notes on the different meditations and breathing exercises – some of which were, on the surface, humanly impossible – contained. After the first hour, she realized her notes weren't matching up. She had cited two entirely contradictory passages on the same page of the third issue, and now neither were there. Only a fragment of one of the beautiful fractal mandalas.

It seemed to announce itself. It was **there.** Before, it had not been, to all perceptions she was accustomed to. Questions rose in her mind, and she turned to the full spread of the mandala. Different, again. She focused on it, trying one of the more physiologically feasible breath-patterns. In, in, in, out-out, in, in, out, in-out, out-in, the tempo and pattern never consistent, like a piece of pi, taken alone and out of context and mutated into instructions. It was nonsensical, and yet, it worked. It cleared her mind of all but the continual dis-repetition of self-similar patterns. Each nested within another, within another, like an infinite cascade of ever smaller eggs, hatching only themselves. The child of the egg is an egg. The egg of a child is an egg. The egg of an egg is a child. This is not a paradox. This is a paradox. **This is not a paradox.** Another uncommon thought, a new one. She could not yet conclusively categorize it as the effect of the volume she had been brought, but it was certainly intriguing. It was novel, having her attention held for – how long was it now? – hours. She knew that before she could categorize it as a permutative, she would have to get halfway there, and halfway to the halfway point, while also halfway from the halfway point, extending infinitely from a central vortex, bubbling and roiling and. She stops herself. The volume is definitely a permutative. How could she think otherwise? It shows all the signs, and she can feel its influence on her mind, subtle and tempting, kaleidoscopic and beautiful and she's already nearly halfway to halfway to halfway to understanding, so why would she stop now? She can feel the questions multiplying in her mind like cancer cells. No wonder this was for her eyes only. Or is there a wonder? She questions it. She questions it? No. She shakes her head, and closes the book, dragging her eyes from the undulating patterns, snakelike, birdlike – no. She drags her eyes away. She closes the book. She closes her eyes. She drags the book away. Looking at the darkness in her eyelids, she repeats her number to herself. She repeats her name. She recenters herself, pulls herself from the swirling edge of chaos. She shudders.

**I apologize. I did not mean to upset you. I like you.**

She hears the book? More questions, but she ignores chasing their answers, keeps her eyes closed, and speaks,“Entity, I do not know thee or thine provenance. Name thyself, cease thy meddling, and appear in a form both fair and pleasing. By the fifty names of -”

 

**Now this is simply rude. I am Aparadoxia. I am not a paradox. But, then, I am. Everything I say is a lie, after all. Especially that.**

“Of Marduk, beloved of the... wait. You _are_ the book?”

**Technically, I am a collection, but, yes. I am that which you read and awakened. Your mind is fast, elevating, exhilarating.**

Cierra opens her eyes, and beholds the scintillating beauty of the book made flesh, standing before her. Their skin is a patchwork of dark and light, changing with both subtle gradients and sharp delineations, breaking up their silhouette, and their clothing emphasizes this, with off-gold luster against swirling grayscale vortexes and whorls, with shifting hues and saturations, moving through their clothes like eels through water. The exact form of their garb escapes Cierra's perception, seeming to be something between a leotard and a robe. Perhaps it, too, was changing. Perhaps it stood still and only her perceptions shifted. Cierra already knew better than to question it.

“You are... beautiful.” It was, perhaps, the first honest compliment Cierra had offered in years. Certainly the quickest.

**Is beauty not in the eye of the beholder? Do I not have you, my beloved observer, to thank for this? What can I offer you to show my thanks?**

A dozen questions, answered with hundreds more, raced through Cierra's mind. As she raised eyes to the face of Aparadoxia, she found herself unable to hold it in her mind. It was like a dream, ephemeral, unearthly and achingly beautiful, and as delicate as a soap bubble, fading in an instant upon waking. Again and again and again she was struck by the beauty, only to forget it when her eyes flickered and saccadic masking blocked her vision. She stares into those eyes, too struck by them to make any judgment of them, to know anything of them but the feeling of their beauty, until her gaze travels to the lips, and the eyes are forgotten, and so on. She does not know how long this lasts. She does not care. She asks, but only receives the question back in distorted echo as she steps forward. She had no idea what it was to want another person before. To feel desire. To feel desired? Yes. She is wanted, by this person. By this book? She is loved. She can feel it, welling up in her as her vision tunnels, holding only the glory of Aparadoxia, and expands, to hold all the reflections and distortions. This is not a paradox. This is a paradox. This is not a paradox. Finally, she speaks, not a question, but a request. A wish, breathed into the room, just for the two of them.

“Kiss me.”

 

* * *

 

 

She does not remember, the next day, why her bed is warmer than it was before. Not until she looks, and sees, and is struck all over again by that feeling. That strange, new feeling, of wanting and being wanted. She files a request to add Aparadoxia to her personal collection, and begins contemplating what to give Efraim to show her appreciation. For her eyes only, indeed.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
